Talk:High-yield investment program

Charis Johnson

I do not consider 12dailypro.com or Charis Johnson an HYIP - this is an Autosurf. Although the two are closely related, I consider a strong difference. I suggest the elimination of Johnson and other autosurfs from the article. 69.245.177.40 03:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

A Critical Review of this article

This article is poorly written. Reasons:

(1) Does not cite any reference. "No HYIP has, as yet, survived for very long without turning out to be a scam." - I know it's obvious fact. Any proof to back this? - Some programs listed on Goldpoll last longer than one year, how do you explain?

(2) Incomplete info. "HYIPs are frequently advertised in spam emails, forums or mailing lists, since people are typically given a commission (for example, 9% of invested funds) when they provide a referral of a new customer." - A special type of website called HYIP monitoring/rating/listing website provides the best advertising for HYIPS. They are the shills and cheerleaders. Open a new section.

(3) Some are speculations. "HYIPs typically are not based in the United States, Europe, or Japan - countries that have strong laws against unregistered investment programs." - How do you conclude this? How do you find out where a scammer reside? Facts: some big scams happened in US and Europe, e.g. 12 daily pro, plexpay.

This is sometimes 'concluded' by looking at registrar information that can be obtained in Whois searches or by looking at where the site itself is hosted, which is usually obtainable by looking at the routing path via a utility like traceroute. Of course, this only shows where the operations of the HYIP are located not where the owners themselves are physically located, and the whois information can be privatized or falsified. Mordere (talk) 06:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

(4) Missing important info. I read the article but could not answer these: How dangerous is hyip? (Give a documentation of an exposed and probed scam) How serious is the problem? (Give statistics. How many people, how much money were scammed?) What are the legal authorities in this field? (SEC, FTC, etc)

First of all please sign your name with the four tildes. Second, I tried removing some unverifiable and un-dictionary like (example: cheerleaders, typical HYIP investors.. opinions) but it definitely needs more work. Panfakes 14:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. This article is poorly sourced - and I've been working on it for over a year. However, any balance I try to bring to the article - by suggesting that people who lose money to HYIP's are themselves irrational - gets cut by the "poor me - I'm a victim of HYIP - hey! I heard there's new one - how do I sign up?" crowd.Cadwallader (talk) 04:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC) I'll go further and say that most of the edits on this article are by idiots who lost money to HYIP's. Hence, the extremely low quality of the article.Cadwallader (talk) 04:41, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed a lot of the original research suggesting why people invest in HYIPs as it lacked reliable, verifiable sources. Let the article stand on its own. (For what it's worth, I've never invested in a HYIP.) White 720 (talk) 04:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Legitimate HYIPs?

ummm... Can someone tell me what makes a legit HYIP scheme? This article doesn't tell that. It just tells how to recognize a scam HYIP. How would a legit HYIP scheme be able to legitimally make payouts? --Dan 06:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Investing in forex might work if you only pay out 1% a day (no compound interest) or something. Also, you could invest your depositors' money in OTHER scams, and just say you didn't know they were scams when the FBI comes. 218.103.137.181 11:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I'd say 3 of 2 legit HYIP schemes are all about scalping_(disambiguation) sucker waves. If you do lot's of 1-2 second investment at about 1/4 of a LOT you can greatly minimize any possible loss from declining sucker waves. -- Picketf 06:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

1% daily interest, not compounded, and 1% compounded daily interest really aren't that different in real life - they're both complete unrealistic (traders of foreign exchange end up losing money as often as they end up gaining on a trade) and unsustainable. And as far as investing money in other scams, there is the delicate matter of timing - you want to get in and get out before the scam collapses, which realistically can hardly be guaranteed to happen. Moreover, you have to get out successfully MOST of the time, since when a scam collapses you lose the entire amount (100%) you invested. John Broughton 00:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Investing in loan and mortgage and for long term investments also real estate can sometimes be very lucrative. Specially if it's handpicked private loan firms that help other institution in debt consolidation (e.g. when they're near bankrupt) these can charge unreal interest rates. Whether these firms operate 100% legal is highly arguable though. -- Picketf 11:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting to the discussion page rather than the article page.

Whenever someone points to a business that "can charge unreal interest rates", the best question to ask is "If the return is so good, why aren't a lot of other companies in the same business?" (Suppose someone claimed that you could earn very high profits from selling ice cream cones from a street cart. If that were true, why wouldn't sidewalks be full of ice cream vendors?) John Broughton 16:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Same reason why HYIPs are just what they are. No serious trader invests long term in HYIP because as the model might work short term (in my example a few companies went broke and with online money they get financed at a point no other bank would have lent them money and thus are required to pay a lot more than usual) it is almost certain that such a cenario can not be held up for a longer period of time. Another cenario for HYIP would rent profits for future bird flu vascination developement. There's a good chance the investment yields very high earnings provided the company really is first in developement. The risk though is high and in most cases cannot be evaluated since most investment programs are not disclosed.

So to answer your question why not many investors care about HYIPs = 1. the risk factor 2. not being able to monitor investment options 3. long term investments are close to impossible. -- Picketf 02:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Another way to achieve high earnings is investing in currency exchange. A typcial conservative scenario would be 3 to 5 percent per transaction. Assume the lower of percent per transaction and say only 5 exchanges a day. This is very doable for a legitimate exchange merchant and would bring in 15 percent per day gross. -- Picketf 12:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

That's really a bogus example - do you believe what you're saying? You're basically saying that the currency exchange (location?) uses 100% of their money in the first exchange (say, changing dollars to euros), uses 100% in the second exchange (euros back to dollars? euros to pounds?), 100% in the third exchange, etc. What's more realistic is that an exchange location has (say) $10,000 on hand, and each transaction is for $400 or so. The profit on each $400 transaction (at 5%) is $20. So five transactions means a profit of $100. That represents a 1% gross profit for the day. But, of course, there is the cost of paying the staff, the rent on the location, the insurance for the location, taxes, etc. (In short, currency exchange is a business, like any other business.)

Exchange on buy rates that is. Sorry for lack of explaination. When you buy anything in foreign currency you'd be charged around 4% exchange rate to compensate inflation (more so if it's loan pay). That's mostly why very expensive merchandise is bought in 2 currencies to minimize exchange rate loss charged by seller. -- Picketf 02:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Here is another real life example for you the live mid-market rates as of 2006.04.18 08:38:02 UTC for Brazilian Real to Swiss Francs is 1 CHF = 1.66392 BRL & 1 BRL = 0.600990 CHF. I called United Banks of Switzerland (UBS) and they told me their rate to buy BRL was 0.6700. That is a pratical increase of 11% I called the Migros Bank of Switzerland and they confirmed that their rate is 0.6700. Imagine now an agency in Brazil operated by 1 person whose salary is set at 300 BRL (140.- USD) monthly changing cash at these rates. (registering only about 1/4 of the exchanges for tax fraud) There you have your example.

And, of course, as interesting as all this is, it has nothing to do with HYIPs, which claim to make very high profits by currency trading (not exchange) or other esoteric (and therefore not explained, or even really explainable) "strategies". John Broughton 16:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

What are we waiting for? Start a currently exchange HYIP today!218.103.137.41 15:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually there are legit high-yield investment programs, however they are usually private. Most of these programs trade on Forex, a few on the Futures market also, and can return over 100% of the initial investment. I worked at such a program as an IB for awhile that returned average 1% for every day trades actually took place. The reason why there are so few of them is because all of them that I know of are day-traders running the program, with methods that they have taken many years to fine tune for specific markets. People with that kind of time on their hands are few and far between. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.75.90 (talk) 06:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Economic growth mirrors the natural world and the human population growth rate. The sustainable real growth rate is about the same as the rate of human population growth. Obviously, specific small investments can greatly outperform this. But the bigger you get, the more the natural limit comes into play. Hence the slowdown of Berkeshire Hathaway once it got enormous. To make a long story short, there is no such thing as a real "High Yield Investment Program". People with the smarts to make more than 20% per year don't farm their services out to the general public. They don't need to.Cadwallader (talk) 23:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I am a research expert and from last several months I have been researching the financial industry across the world. I think that some hyip are good companies and some bad created with an intention to scam. The hyip companies which are good collect money in the form of small amounts like 1 to 10 USD from across the world and then invest them somewhere in forex, stock, etc. high risk and highly volatile markets. They keep paying interest to investors as far as the experts employed by these hyip admins/owners fetch good profits. Some hyip companies last for few days, some last for few months and some last for a year also as far as it concerns to my knowledge and researched datafacts. Even the hyip monitoring companies exist which keeps monitoring the hyip investment companies. Note that there is difference between hyip investment company and hyip monitoring and hyip research companies. For example: http://www.hyipshyip.com is a legally registered financial monitoring and research website and is something like a social networking site specifically for the global financial sector. As soon as some hyip investment company does fraud or scam, these hyip monitoring and hyip research companies alerts the investors. Now suppose, a hyip lasts for 3 months, then those who invested in the very beginning must definitely have earned 10 times of what they invested and those who invested just at the end or near of three months, when it was the time for hyip investment company to scam, then such last investors loose their money. This is how all hyip related games work. Hope I tried to give as much as info I could research and hopefully this will be more then enough to answer your question. Have a nice day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.102.127.9 (talk) 13:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

And how, pray tell, does collecting small amounts make it legitimate? That merely raises the transaction cost. Yet another comment from an HYIP pusher. This article continues to be entirely written by HYIP idiot-victims or HYIP pushers instead of legitimate Wikipedia editors. Cadwallader (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Cites for "Interest Rates" section

In response to Monkeyman's deletion of this section, with the edit summary Interest Rate - Unsourced. Please site if readding., I went to google.com and checked the results of searching on "high yield investment programs". In fact, the rate cited (.4% per day) was too LOW, based on the first five links I found that listed a variety of HYIPs. Those sites are as follows (please note that I am NOT providing these as links; I do NOT in any way recommend that anyone go to these sites except to verify my posting here): hyiptracer.com/programs.php hyip.reb usnet.biz/ hyipa dmin.com/all_programs.php www.newbieh angout.com/hyip/ www.dailyins tantpay.net/

I've added the section back, modified to indicate what I found. I do note that I'm a bit puzzled by Monkeyman's deletion - does he really think that the norm is LESS than one percent per day? John Broughton 05:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The information your present is fine but you need to source the information. That is why I removed it. Wikipedia:Cite_sources#How_to_cite_sources Monkeyman^(talk) 13:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Apologies if I seemed to be making unsubstantiated statements; researching the section did result in an improved version, I think. And thanks for policing the spam links on this article, which is obviously a magnet for unacceptable behaviour. John Broughton 17:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Monkeyman - let me see if I can better understand your putting the "citation needed" label for the statement that "HYIPs typically offer an interest rate of 1% or more per day on invested funds"? Would the five URLs that I listed above be adequate "sources" if I stuck them in the article - would having those five URLs be enough to justify removing the label? And if not, why not? John Broughton 17:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

John, The problem I have with this statement is that the interest rate might be 1% for the first few months of the HYIP. What happens after everyone starts pulling out? Can we also quote somewhere that the interest rates can be -20% per day in some cases? It is my opinion that the companies/people quoting these incredible rates are doing so in order to get exposure for their site. But to address your question, i think one source from a more reputable site would be enough. We just need to know who is saying this stuff. Monkeyman^(talk) 17:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that when everyone starts pulling out, a program goes bust, as is the case with all ponzi schemes. As far as the interest rate being -20%, I don't think that can actually be the case (though I've never put money into a HYIP). Isn't the 1% a sort of CONTRACT?

I'm perfectly willing to say "claim to offer an initial rate of 1% per day, which, if sustained, would be ... " or something similar. The problem here, I'm beginning to think, is that common sense - looking at a bunch of different sites - supports the sentence I'm trying to write, but that there may not be a newsarticle or SEC release that says exact that. (By way of analogy, consider a sentence like "The sun rose in the east 365 out of 365 days last year." That's true, but it may be hard to find an article that says exactly that.) John Broughton 21:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with this wording. I've changed the "Interest" section to reflect these changes. Feel free to add/remove anything I've missed. Thanks for your work on this article. Monkeyman^(talk) 21:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The point is that you can't really have a source for 200% a day without being classed as advertising. Anyway the programs die so quickly that links would have to be changed daily.

fraudaid

Sorry, I had to removed the fraudaid link. This is a commercial site offering "Professional Services" for a fee. Any information in that link should be included directly into the article rather than simply linking to it. May I also ask, are you affiliated with this site in any way? Monkeyman^(talk) 17:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it wasn't that useful a site in terms of original arguments. I was just trying to add additional links so that readers would get a sense sense that there are substantial arguments against HYIPs. And no, I'm not affiliated with this site in any way - it was just among the top twenty or so google results (with virtually all the rest being pro-HYIP). John Broughton 20:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea where you get that impression: Fraudaid is a commerical site? Just because there is a link to a commercial service makes you omit the majority of helpful, free info on the website? Fraudaid is one of the best websites that tells you what to do after you are scammed. It contains both original material and links to other websites, and they can't put them all in one page. Or do you think only completely free website may be added? I don't think SEC and Canadian Police are free, the taxpayers pay them.

cattyshaq

Would it be acceptable to include a link to www.catt yshaq.com? I'd rather not add it until someone impartial thinks that it would be a useful resource. 194.72.35.70 11:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a forum so I don't think it belongs here. Any content they have should be included in the Wikipedia article (as long as it meets Wikipedia:Copyrights). Monkeyman^(talk) 13:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not acceptable to link to a forum unless it's somehow both unique and authoritative. I've not looked at catt yshaq. com, but I imagine that there are tons of discussions of HYIPs out there. But if you find some useful insights, or pointers to useful things (like attorney general takedowns of specific HYIPs, on the forum, by all means add those to the article - just don't link to the forum. (A forum isn't really a source - it's more like "he said, she said"; you want something - like a link to an official document - that stands on its own, regardless of where you might have found it.)

Thanks for asking, by the way. Good question. John Broughton 17:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Deleted text - May 2006

I'm not going to get into an argument (with an anonymous IP poster with a total of one edit - 128.163.112.205) about whether the following (deleted text) meets wikipedia's requirements for verifiable (and authoritative) sourced information. But I think the information is useful, so I'm posting it here with an invitation for someone else to add it back but with better sources. John Broughton 18:21, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The largest hyip scam that ever existed is PIPS (People in Profit System or Pure Investors)[1]. The investment scheme was started by an engineer Bryan Marsden in 2003 and spanned more than 20 countries in the world. PIPS is now being investigated by Bank Negara Malaysia [2]

According to a website HYIP Scam Search that maintains a comprehensive database of HYIP scams daily, as at May of 2006, the total number of HYIP scams was approximately 3500. This is the total number of scams occurred from 2004 to 2006 and excluding scams not reported. About 5 new scams are reported every day. 89% of the scams preferred e-gold as their online payment processors than others [3]

It's me who put them up. So let me wait for a month. I think the information is truthful. if no one is able to give a better source that provides more accurate information, I will put them up again. 04:43, 6 June 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.74.93.155 (talk • contribs)

No opinion? 02:15, 23 June 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.74.92.241 (talk • contribs)

Why don't you go ahead and put it back. Add this link for PIPS: [4] Add this provides updated info: [5] It would be good if you updated your text. John Broughton 20:47, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I removed PlexPay Network from the "successfully indicted" list, because the company have never been indicted. The former president, Frode Jørgensen, was indicted for embezzlement and fraud, but the charges have been reduced to "breach of the lottery law". The prosecutor's office have yet to produce evidence that there were no investements made. The norwegian police have apparently killed off a legal corporation in growth, and I'm eagerly awaiting the following lawsuits :)

Too bad the Norwegian Police are so incompetent, PlexPay may be legal, but offering / soliciting investments on the internet may be illegal. Just get a number of unpaid investors to testify, that should work out. 165.21.155.9 08:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

addition by IP 70.18.219.135

Under US law these "games" would be considered illegal lotteries, since one cannot know whether one is playing early enough to win money.

But in a lottery, you have an equal chance of winning no matter when you buy your ticket. So "lottery" is not the right word.. perhaps "gambling"? What do people such as John Broughton (I suspect you watch this page) think? 203.218.88.254 10:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

hyip "games" do have some similarities with lotteries. Both pay a small number of lucky persons money pooled by a large number of losers.

about the website HYIP Scam Search http://www.stochasticsoccer.com/kakarukeys/

Some have tried to spam by changing the link. They might question why I added the site instead of theirs. [6] is non-hardline information portal for hyip investors maintained by Sirius Clan, an organization who fights hyip scams. I find their reasearch interesting: [7]. The website does not promote any hyip program (you will find they actually denounce it if you explore further). The website is non-profit (except Google adsense which probably is used to cover hosting cost). HYIP monitors promote and advertise hyip programs for referral commissions. In fact some of them do cheerleading for them. They are helpers for many ponzi schemes. 16:07, 27 July 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.155.12 (talk • contribs)

I've looked at the site, and I agree that it is about the best that can be hoped for, for reliable information. John Broughton 16:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

recent addition by 71.10.0.58 aka GERALDmsu

This guy is promoting his own site (claiming to be an internet PI) and his yahoo group which has one member (himself) and bascially no activity for the past year. I removed the link but he put it back. Third party opinion? 203.218.87.69 05:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right. I've done a revert. John Broughton 13:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

THE VICTIMS GROUP HAS BEEN CLOSED TILL 8.18.06, JUST OPENED, WAITING FOR INVESTIGATION TO START. AUSTRALIA ALSO INVESTIGATIGATING. INTERESTING: I POST A SITE TO HELP VICTIMS AND INVESTIGATORS, (PHOTOS, AND, THE BIGGER LIST OF VICTIMS THE BETTER FOR PROSECUTION ) AND YOU ACCUSE ME OF PROMOTING MY SITE? WERE WORKING PRO BONO, AND ALREADY HAVE A LARGE ARCHIVE. WHOM ARE YOU? 21:39, 20 August 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by GERALDmsu (talk • contribs) }

Show us the website. We can see. 16:24, 23 August —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2006 165.21.155.17 (talk • contribs)

!!! FOLLOW THE LINK everything is there, he has been arreszted, see photo, links in yahoo group.Gerald!!!

HYIP Justice

There's no way to add this URL to the first entry in HYIP Justice factfindings dot tekcities dot com Wiki says it's spam. I put hyip scam search there temporarily.

Can someone do something about it? 16:24, 23 August 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.21.155.17 (talk • contribs)

Removing reference links to unreliable sources

The stochasticsoccer website is clearly not a reliable source, it's someone's personal website, and worse, it is profitting off the hyip scams by providing links to them. This is actually common in the HYIP scam world, there are many sites out there which claim to be offering help, which offer the message, "99% of the hyips are scams, here's how to avoid the scams and find the good ones", when in fact there are no good ones, they are all scams. The very existence of hyip scam databases is part of the scam, as it implies that one can check a HYIP program to see if it's in the database and that this will help avoid being scammed. When of course the very fact that it's a HYIP means that it is automatically a scam. --Xyzzyplugh 00:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

While what you said has merit, it is incorrect. I'll let the website owner defend himself though. Urban dictionary should be removed, of course, but I'm restoring the other two. 129.31.72.52 09:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

In what way is what I said incorrect? The stochasticsoccer page says, at the top of the page, "This website lets you check if an HYIP is a scam. Part of your HYIP due diligence". As all HYIP's are scams, this is clearly falsely implying that some are not. And note the following policy page: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources. This is a personal webpage, and therefore not a reliable source, and the other link you restored was to a message board posting, even a less reliable source, especially given that it is a message board devoted to these HYIP scams. --Xyzzyplugh 15:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

After looking a bit at the message board, it's so infested with scams, clearly supported by those running the message board, that I'm going to revert the last edit to the article to remove both those links immediately. I don't want to get into an edit war, but these scam links don't belong here. --Xyzzyplugh 15:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding 00:29, 21 November 2006 Kungming2 (Talk | contribs) m (JS: Reverted vandalism by 137.132.3.11 to last version by Xyzzyplugh.) Regarding edits made during November 21, 2006 (UTC) to Talk:High Yield Investment Program Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits are considered vandalism. If you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the work of others. Thank you. If this is an IP address, and it is shared by multiple users, ignore this warning if you did not make any unconstructive edits. –- kungming·2 | (Talk·Contact) 00:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I was the 137.132.*.* This is a talk page, not the article, I am entitled to give my opinion. Stop branding post as unconstructive when you disagree with it. If you don't like just go away. You are the one who vandalised. Fuck you.

ProFF this is the most biased article i ever read in wikipedia. its true that 90% of supposedly HYIP are scams, but there are some that are not. even if most of them are scams, the article should be kept neutral, not like the tons of bullshit you can see here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.46.24.178 (talk) 09:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the situation is a bit precarious. Although there are investment opportunities which offer a good ROI or yield, no verifiable legitimate, ethical investments market themselves as a "high-yield investment program." There are Junk Bonds which also known as high-yield debts or bonds, but those are all traded on regulated financial markets. I think this article should serve not as a description of a broad category of "investment programs," such as savings, DRPs, mutual funds or bonds, which are all regulated in some form and which happen to have high ROIs, but about the usage of the full term "high-yield investment programs" as a veritable term for numerous ponzi scams which classify and advertise themselves as such.Mordere (talk) 00:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Lotteries

There are two issues I have with User:Cadwallader edits. The first and foremost is the tone in which it was written. It is informal, uses many colloquialisms, and sways the article further from a Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. The second issue is it is insubstantial except for the fact that it seems to further a viewpoint that HYIP's are merely more than illegal lotteries. Although this issue does indeed have merit, enough so that it is addressed within the HYIP games section, some, or most, HYIP's, such as PIPS, try to present their scams as reputable organizations. Investors into these HYIPs are not giving money to the scam in hopes of winning the lottery but with trust that these companies actually will be able to give them a decent ROI. This is has been shown in HYIP cases brought before the SEC that are prosecuted. Players, as they are referred to in the article, may treat these scams lotteries. But the victims of these scams do not put money into them for that intent and are very much ignorant to the fact that HYIPs may be Ponzi scams. Mordere (talk) 22:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

REPLY TO USER MORDERE:: A dislike of my writing style calls for an edit, not a reversion. I added some useful information about the motivation and use of digital currency in the mechanics section. It is also important and factual to discuss the participants of HYIPs because they do not fit the profile of a typical fraud victim. A significant number of HYIP participants, the majority, do seem to play it like a game.

Also, the use of the word "victim" is just as questionable under NPOV as the word "player". "Participant" would perhaps be a truly NPOV term.

I am not a defender or promoter of HYIPs. However, I also have worked in the digital currency exchange business long enough to have encountered numerous "participants" in HYIP schemes who show the behavior of gamblers and keep "participating" in new HYIP's even though they lost money in previous ones. This can be independently verified by perusing the various HYIP Monitor forums. Thus I feel little sympathy for the "victims" of HYIP's and consider the consistent use of the term in this article to be biased. There are two vices involved in the HYIP sector: the fraud of those who create the schemes, and the repetitive reckless risk-taking desire to get something for nothing by the participants. Perhaps you can state the substance of my content in a literary style more suitable to Wikipedia. I'll give it a week and if you haven't put the material back in, I will add it myself. Cadwallader (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Victim, as used above as one that is tricked or duped, is perfectly apt in the context in which it was used. There are many documented cases of people being defrauded by HYIP schemes. Participant, which is a synonym for player in the Oxford American Dictionary, still implies that people who give money to these are taking a share or role in the scam. Investor is almost always apt in this article because it implies that people hope to recieve money out of a payment which they make. Questioning the mens_rea of people who do contribute money to HYIPs is beyond the scope of most of the sections in which you are advancing the POV that investors are mostly players. I believe it's perfectly fine to put that viewpoint into a section such as social aspects or players. However, it should probably remain outside of most other contexts.

As to your literary style, disregarding the previous discussion of the innocence of investors, the additions to the mechanics section did little more than expound scenarios in which HYIPs are operated from much of the summation material in the preexisting section. It also included a good deal of material that should have been InterWiki links instead of maxims. While this is perfectly fine for an exploratory essay, I believe it's not inline with Avoiding instructional and presumptuous language and article size.

I believe an example is in order here, so I will cite one of your edits:

The use of digital payments systems has made it much easier for operators of such websites to accept payments from people worldwide[8]. Electronic Money systems are generally accepted by HYIP operators because that is the only payment system to which they have access. Obviously, acceptance of credit cards and ACH would give them access to a far larger pool of prospective victims, but the difficulty of opening a merchant processing account while hiding their identity prevents them from doing so. Since digital money systems generally don't issue credit and don't earn interest on their client accounts, they often do not perform investigation of their merchant clients, as a bank typically does.

Much of this information was already alluded to in the preexisting paragraph with the adjectives anonymous final transactions. The term, "obviously", sounds condescending and also makes the article very informal. The sentence about a "larger pool of prospective victims" is pure conjecture. Second of all, the criticisms of digital gold currency are already widely covered in the section in Digital gold currency criticisms. I believe that this article may have been incorrectly linked as Electronic Money in the original section. It is usually better to link to a more in depth article with a brief explanation than trying to rewrite that article inside another. This is what I meant by lacking substance.

I believe it was necessary to revert your edits given the amount of nefarious vandalism that has gone on in this article. I was also trying to consider that this article desperately needs cleaned up and does not need more unsourced facts contributing to Wikipedia:Article_size. I am removing your edits that may advance the view of implicit guilt of investors from sections in which they do not belong and removing condescending, instructional, or wordy language. I am also adding fact tags to all of your edits which I believe are pure conjecture. I will be removing any of these unsourced statements on April 17, 2008, which is one calendar week (not a Cadwallader week which apparently is less than 3 days) if no credible source is provided because I believe that they are harmfull to the article. And finally, I will be reverting the fork of the Wikipedia:Lead_section as the previous lead section provided a better summation of HYIPs than a single sentence. Mordere (talk) 01:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Cut EMOCorp

EMOCorp was listed (very possibly by me) as a failed money system started by people associated with HYIP. That was not factual. Further research on my part has found that though EMO was taken into receivership and liquidated by the Texas AG, the founder Todd Trideau, has never been publicly associated with HYIP programs.Cadwallader (talk) 04:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Reversions

Apart from the regular spam edits and reversions, someone has deleted several sections of this article in the past month, without discussing it here. I am reverting it to the last discussed change. Cadwallader (talk) 15:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

We want a public answer for deleting an independent assessment project!

We added http://www.cashmakersonline.com to the external link page, since we belive this project can help future investors to invest in reputable and reliable investment programs! We respect the deleting but we cannot accept no public reply in this discussion section. Is there any rule against sites which help people to make the right decision? --Cashmakersbiz (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a rule against self-promotion, yes. We call it spam. Please explore advertising venues other than Wikipedia. Thanks. Haakon (talk) 21:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Self-promotion suggest that the site belongs to us, I don't think you meant that do you Haakon..We is my wife Mary and me. Thank you for your advise on advertising venues, but we still stick to that opinion that there is nothing self-promotional when you offer people a place where they can invest 'securely' or at least get the necessary information how to start things and where to invest. —Preceding unsigned --Cashmakersbiz (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)comment added by Cashmakersbiz (talk • contribs) 21:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Give me a break. Haakon (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

don't get your point..if you are italian contact Mark Haakon. I won't discuss anymore. We wanted to help inexperienced investors and probably done very bad things.. If you really dislike cashmakersonline.com as an independent project dismiss it. w.b.regards --Cashmakersbiz (talk) 21:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The point is that it is very obvious that you are, in fact, Mark the owner of the site. But of course you understand that, which is why you don't want to "discuss" anymore. Haakon (talk) 21:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The title of "cashmakersonline.com" is "Make money through online investing in high yield investment programs hyip". Any questions? --John Nagle (talk) 07:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

JustBeenPaid

Some editors have been adding information about JustBeenPaid (JBP), an "indefinitely sustainable" program, to this article as an example of a legitimate HYIP. The only thing that makes this program sustainable is that its proprietor can "restart" it by switching from a Ponzi scheme (2% per day payout) to a pyramid scheme (matrixes where $80 comes in on the bottom level and $60 is paid out on the top level). Both of these schemes operate by taking money from people within the program to pay people within the program, although the pyramid scheme part actually pays out less by funneling money to the operators. JBP meets both the definition of an HYIP by promising unrealistically high returns in a short period of time (as a Ponzi scheme) and the definition of a pyramid scheme by generating income purely from within the program. White 720 (talk) 03:27, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Tracker sites

I've changed this a couple of times now - the source [8] doesn't back what is being said:

"Some web sites, known as "Tracker sites", recognize that HYIPs collapse, but help investors time their entry and exit so that they can still make money."

the source says ""Their only purpose is to help people choose where they can put their money," said Dr Clayton, though he was cautious of drawing any strong conclusions given the lack of corroborating evidence."

These are two very different things, the source says nothing about the trackers recognizing collapse, and is weaker than a claim of fact that they help investors time their entry and exit. The best we can say is that one expert is of the opinion that the trackers exist solely to help some "work" these schemes for net gain.

The article also stated "These investors actively recruit others to join the HYIP they invested in", the source says nothing even vaguely similar. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 19:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's another article about the same study. I'll see if I can find a link to the study itself.--Nowa (talk) 22:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't doubt the study exists, what I'm concerned about is that the results of the study as documented in these articles don't back the claims we are apparently making off the back of it. That additional article also doesn't support the assertions made. It says nothing about the tracker sites existing purely to help those who know these are a scam to get in and out at the right time. it says nothing about those who know these are scams actively recruiting others. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 06:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Understood. Do you think there is anything we should say about tracker sites in this article?--Nowa (talk) 16:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it's important so yes. Perhaps something like the following? Using the same references. (The second reference is certainly quite explicit about the use of trackers)

Some investors are using the online schemes to make money, by attempting to put money in at an early enough stage to create a return, whilst cashing out before the scheme collapses - affording a profit off the late entrants. This is in itself a gamble as poor timing may result in a total loss of all money invested. To reduce this risk some of these investors use tracker sites listing the schemes and their current state. One expert proposes that the trackers sites can serve little purpose but to aid such investors, though lacks conclusive evidence to support this theory.

--62.254.139.60 (talk) 19:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks good.--Nowa (talk) 23:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Being run online

I have deleted references to HYIPs being "run online." There is no source to say why this is a notable trait of a HYIP. HYIPs are not necessarily run 100% online: some encourage players to recruit people by networking on-line and off-line, for example. That they have a web site and a web-based back office are not notable; my bank has those, and I use them almost entirely, but my bank is not "run online." White 720 (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

HourlyRevShare.net

What do you guys think of www.HourlyRevShare.Net ? Should we add it to the Article? It has many of the qualities of a Ponzi scheme, or HYIP. Wikipedia can be a public service, protecting consumers, by bringing out the truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StudentJ10873 (talk • contribs) 23:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Due diligence section

Please do not add instructions on how to do due diligence before investing in a HYIP to this page, for these reasons:

1. Wikipedia is not a place for instruction manuals — see WP:NOTGUIDE.
2. This duplicates information in the due diligence page.
3. Because a HYIP is a Ponzi scheme, no amount of due diligence will prevent a program from collapsing under the weight of its own obligations.

Any information added to this page must be supported by reliable sources — see WP:RS. Any additional instructional material will be deleted. 24.18.227.206 (talk) 16:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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